Liam Rosenior's former ally brands him 'unrecognisable' as Chelsea manager

Liam Rosenior has attracted criticism since joining Chelsea and he made some bizarre comments following his side's Premier League defeat to Newcastle

Liam Rosenior has been labelled as ‘unrecognisable’ by one of his former team-mates. The Chelsea head coach's woes continued on Tuesday night when his side were thumped 8-2 across two legs by Paris Saint-Germain, bringing their European campaign to an end.

Chelsea had been left with a mountain to climb after losing 5-2 in Paris, with the reigning European champions having blitzed the Premier League outfit late on in the first leg. Hopes of an unlikely comeback were squashed early, when the hosts found themselves 2-0 down on the night after just 15 minutes.

Attention now switches towards Chelsea’s FA Cup campaign, as well as the race to finish inside the Champions League positions. There has been rumours that failure to qualify for next season’s Champions League could force Chelsea to pull the plug on the Rosenior experiment and search for yet another new manager, reports the Express.

FOLLOW OUR CHELSEA FB PAGE! Latest Blues news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page

However, his ex-Hull City team-mate Kevin Kilbane believes Rosenior has taken on a new persona since stepping into the dugout. He told Off The Ball: “I played with Liam at Hull and I got on well with Liam, he used to tell some great stories of Roy Keane when he was his manager at Ipswich.

“And you see the way he is now, to me, he’s unrecognisable to the player and the person I knew. It’s like he’s swallowed a psychologist’s manual or a sporting mentor’s memoir. Everything he says is to me is waffle, drivel, nothing.

“It’s like he tries to write as many quotes down as possible and tries to get them into a pre-match talk or post-match whenever addressing the media. If I’m a player being asked to do that huddle, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I was a Chelsea player.”

Chelsea did perform their pre-match huddle in the centre circle ahead of the second leg with PSG but didn’t surround the ball in order to 'protect' it, as they had done at the weekend vs Newcastle. The two-time European champions will return to action at the weekend when they face Everton in the Premier League.

Speaking after the defeat to PSG, Rosenior said: "A tough night. We knew it was a tough ask and to start the game in the manner that we did.

“We had the ball in the final third. You can't make mistakes at this level. We had the ball in their box and Barcola hit one from 25 yards into the top corner. Their belief grows.

"They were clinical. The third goal, the ball breaks, and he hits in the top corner. I haven't looked at the stats yet, but we had a lot of shots. They didn't make mistakes. I want to thank the fans because they saw how hard the lads worked.

"Mamadou (Sarr), he's a very good player, but we missed our two starting right-backs. There are times when you have to put players in, and you have to trust them. It took the wind out of our sails."

"When you go through a difficult run, you have to make sure your habits are right. We have a really difficult game at Everton, and we have to be at our best to get a result there."